Zeke sees someone at the grocery store who looks like a famous movie actor. He assumes it really is the actor and overlooks the fact that about 1% of all adult men look a little like that actor. What error has Zeke made?

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Zeke has failed to consider base-rate information, which is the statistical probability of the occurrence of an event based on prior knowledge or experience. In this case, the base-rate information would be the fact that only about 1% of adult men look a little like the famous movie actor. Instead, Zeke relied on the representativeness heuristic, which refers to making judgments based on how much something resembles a typical case, rather than considering statistical probabilities.

Zeke Sees Someone at the Grocery Store Who Looks Like